Sucess in Baltimore

Friday

The original plan was to leisurely get up, briefly review over our class material, and then go to the Museum of Art and see the sites. However, this is not at all what happened. I woke up, but not leisurely (thank you cell phone and iPod going off at 7 am!!! And that was totally my fault), and we didn't briefly run over our material or see a museum, or see Baltimore. But no point crying over spilled milk!

Actually, the day was very successful. Kevin and I had a good warm-up, we ran through our class material and routine, and then had some great lunch at Py (a fabulous pizza joint). After that, we came back and did 2 half privates, and then got ready for the dance.

Dorry and Sommer headed out early and Kev and I took naps before the dance. This meant that we then had to drive ourselves to John Hopkins University. We made it to the campus just fine, but we had NO idea where to park. After taking in an unexpected view of the campus, we finally found a spot near a meter. Then we realized we didn't know what building it was in!

After wandering around, we found the Great Hall. The Boilermakers Jazz Band were playing and they were ON that night. Their sound and energy was great! Not to mention, the very lovely Naomi Uyama was there singing with the band. Even more fabulous was that Dorry & Sommer hired Naomi to teach the beginner lesson before the dance. Apparently this had never happened before. Word to event director who hire the Boilermakers: If Naomi is singing with them, you are SILLY to not hire her to teach your beginning lesson. For goodness sake, she is already there!!

So anyways.....Kev and I did some social dancing and then we pumped ourselves up for our performance. This would be the um-teenth time we would have done our "Swingin at the Cotton Club Routine", but we were still nervous. I don't worry about forgetting the choreography because my body will remember it as well as Kev will always lead it...but I was worried that I wouldn't have the stamina to get through it. It's not terribly long, but it's fast.

The performance went well and we were very pleased with it, however we were so tired afterwards that we headed home so that we could get into bed early. Fortunately or unfortunately Sommer and Dorry came home before we went to bed and then cooked us late-night breakfast. It was soooooooooooo good. Yum yum.

And then it was bed time.

Getting out of the cold

We are so ready to leave this cold weather. It's like it never goes away!

The snow is still novel to me; it reminds me of Christmas. In fact, I'd prefer it to snow than rain any day of the week. However, snow requires cold weather and I am not a fan of cold weather. I feel like I have come a long way since my Southern California days and am now able to bear the cold weather. 40 degrees no longer is all that bad! But when it gets down to 30, I have a hard time with it.

Kevin and I are normally traveling and we go visit other weather climates, and then we briefly return to ours momentarily. These days, however, we've spent a significant amount of time in Pittsburgh (we'll, for us it has been) and it's just plain cold. The cold seeps into the walls at night and my legs and feet get so cold that I can hardly fall asleep.

But no more!!! We are going to Baltimore!!!

This weekend we are teaching at the Leap Year Lindy Weekend and we are looking forward to different (and hopefully better) weather. We are leaving very early tomorrow (7:45am - eeeppp!!!) for a warmer climate and to go see Dr. Ron (a chiropractor) that Kevin knows in DC.


Hopes for this weekend:

warm weather
cute brick buildings
a "cultural" experience
seeing Semi-Pro with Sommer and Dorry
teaching students who have a great sense of humor and are ready to learn
eating some great food
lots of laughing
hearing great music
having some great social dances

Keep on Dancing - Robots

A friend of a friend made this cute little thing.



If you want to know more, go to the website: Keepon & the BeatBots.

Ode to a Glue Gun

Oh Glue Gun
How have I known of you for so long
Yet have kept my distance until now?
Yes, a home-improvement project united us
But don't be upset by that
Because now I understand that I shall never live without you again.

Your sleek design, and slender sides
Are delicate to the touch.
Glue hangs out your backside, but I don't judge you for that;
You were just designed that way.

I feel so powerful around you Glue Gun.
I am able to turn you on at a flip of a switch
And then you warm to me.
Not only that, but you get hot for me.
I feel like I could run the world.
What inner power I must have!

You are more powerful than the elements!
The Sun cannot melt your work.
The weather cannot make you freeze.
Water cannot dissolve your gobs of desire,
And not even fire can keep you from doing your duty.

I perch you upon your head-stand while you warm to my touch
You sit there knowingly
Knowing that there is almost nothing you can't do.
And that is what drew me to you:
You are confident in your abilities
And you are smoking HOT!

Fabrics and jewels, they bow to you.
Doll houses and decor, they devour you.
Fake flowers adorn girls head as an ode to you,
Saying, "Thank You" for making my wishes come true.

You are warm to the touch as I pick you up.
Slowly I squeeze your trigger
And you ooze with delight.
When I stoke you just righ,
You work consistenly and provide me what I need.
And Ode to you as you make my curtain wishes come true.

Oh Glue Gun!
Never again, will I live with out.

When there is snow....

It's cold here in Pittsburgh. "It's cold here everyday. What is this, Miami Beach?"
- Bill Murray in Groundhogs Day

Kevin and I have watched that movie twice now and we are bemused that yet another movie has taken place in Pittsburgh. Very cool.

Moving along....

It's snowing and it's cold and there are a few things that one should do in such occasions: sit by a fire, sing Christmas carols, drink hot chocolate (some spike is optional), and make snow angles. Well, I have done all of things except make a snow angle, so TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!!

Here are some pictures of me posing by the freezing car:








































And here is one of me making a snow angle:

















I realize that after I start flapping that cotton doesn't protect you from snow. In fact, I might go out onto a snow-covered limb and say that cotton wicks up the cold and moisture!! This is relevant because I am wearing cotton stretch pants at the time of my brilliant angelic stunt.

Oooh, actually, I need to add make a snowman and carve an ice sculpture (thanks Phil Connors!!!) to my list. Two more things to do before the snow is gone!!!

New Goals

Personal dance-related Goals

learn how to build a website
learn how to cut/edit music
learn how to cut/edit video
get a curtain/backdrop made for filming
hang curtains
film 50 clips by the end of March
post them on our iLindy website
make money off of our Lindy Hop DVD

be stronger
increase endurance
increase flexibility
continue to inspire and be inspired

Paint to a New You - Part II

I woke up this morning a little confused. I slept in one of our guest bedroom and even though all my belongings were there with me, I woke up feeling lost. One of our guest bedroom is cave-ish insomuch as it's very dark (it has one window that looks out onto another person's roof that is about 2 feet away) and cold, whereas my room is incredibly bright at all hours (either a street light is glowing into my room or the sun beams into my eyes starting around 7am).

I didn't start my morning off the way I normally did; however, today is a new day for me to paint my way to a new me. What do I mean by this? I love remodeling. I dream of remodeling. I imagine the endless things I could do to Hoodstock (the nickname for our beloved house) with unlimited amounts of funds. So, I am getting to reinvent myself on a smaller scale. No longer will someone come into my room and say, "Wow, your walls are filthy" or "Is that a window I am trying to look through?" or "Yikes! Is this where you live?" or anything else of the sort. No one has actually said those things, but after today, no one will ever be able to say those things about my room (or me for that matter). I think your room or any other personal space one has says something about that person (this is by no means meant to be profound), and up until recently, I was living in a space that said "only for a little bit" instead of "this is me in my space."

But more to the point, I wanted to change my room, and I FINALLY have a weekend free to do it! Kevin and I have been at Hoodstock since mid-September and this is the first time we've gotten to do a home-improvement project. Yeah!!!

So there was lots of painting to do, but we went through it much quicker than we did with the primer. At first I was trying to be gentle and not splatter, and basically have perfect brush strokes, but today was a different story. I was over pussy-footing around; I needed to slap the paint on so it could start drying!

Kev did the walls and I did edges and detailing again, but it wasn't nearly as exhausting or draining as it was the day before. As the heat radiated from the radiator and as the tunes crooned from my iPod speakers, Kev and I happily painted away, enjoying the new walls and the new room.

As white swept the inner walls, white blanketed the outside. It was snowing so hard that we ended up canceling dance class. We made the assumption that the storm might not let up, in which case many students probably couldn't or wouldn't come. Since we have 2 routine classes, we didn't't want people missing the material, so canceling felt like it would be the right decision, which in turn lead us to calling half the student body to make sure they knew class was canceled.

Phone Tree
Kev and I had a pretty good system worked out and we motored through about 80 names rather quickly. We noticed that our messages became more concise the more we left, and that when we bobbled, it was very amusing. We'd also say the name of the person right as we were calling and hope the other person hadn't already called them before someone on the other end picked up.

We made some phone calls, had some Subway sandwiches, and then headed back in the Ivory room. It was already looking so much better. I was so pleased. We definitely need to do another coat tomorrow, but it's looking wonderful. I feel like the value of Kev's house has just gone up!!!

I took some pictures; hopefully I can get them up in the next few days.

Cheers!

Paint to a New You

It's painting day!!!!!

I am so very excited because today is the first day real progress will be made on my room. It's going to receive it's first proper paint job ever (from what I can tell).

Yesterday I moved all my belongings out of the room: boxes, books, hangers, clothes, shoes, junk, etc. Thank goodness there are 2 empty rooms upstairs for me to stash my stuff in, otherwise I have no idea where everything would go! After that, Kevin came in and taped off the room. My goodness was that time consuming. I had been fantasizing about how easy it would be to paint my room, but there were so many edges and nooks and crannies; the amount of work seemed endless!

But the work didn't end there. No-no. We scrapped off the large paint globs that had been left, swept the floors, vacuumed, and then scrubbed the walls.

Yes, we scrubbed the walls. I didn't even know that one would do such a thing unless you had children and crayons or markers! But the walls were filthy and it had ot be done. The walls were still a depressing shade of baby blue, but much less dingy now.

Fast-forward to today. I got into some grungy clothes and Kevin got into his painter-suit and we busted out our new painter toys. We had rollers, extenders, sponge brushes, bristled brushed, primer and Ivory paint in an eggshell finish. I was put on edges while Kev got to use the roller. Honestly, I was a little jealous because I wanted to roll around the room with the big roller and make the major changes; instead, I was down in a crouch position dealing with molding. Sigh. But it needed to get done, and I wanted to do it.

As music blared, we hummed along, wiggled a bit, and made some serious headway with the primer. However, after hour 4 rolled around, we needed to take a break. I was feeling overly anal-retentive doing so much detail work, but I KNOW it had to get done. Man! All those edges, nooks, and crannies were really doing a number on my psyche. I was tired of looking at cracks and edges, but there were soooooooooooo many of them that were vying for my attention. Finally I had to say enough.

We took a break to eat and watched a little TV before returning to my space. Kev helped me finish up with the details and then we called it a night. Tomorrow we'll switch over to the Ivory paint and start the real transformation.

Yeah!!!!!

Sword Fighting

Kevin and Jeff

Superbow Sunday

What an awesome game that was!! OMG, I had so much fun watching my first Superbowl, I could hardly believe it. (Note: I have seen bits and pieces of past games, but haven't watched a whole game). However, the part-time show was not up to par according to my standards. I understand that having Janet's tatas hang out the other year didn't go over so well, but really, Tom Petty? I am not denying that he is a great singer/performer, but for a half time show? And did you see when the "arrow" entered into the "heart" to kick off the show?! How phallic-looking was that?

Anyways.

The commercials were stellar. I am planning on visiting their myspace page to watch the superbowl ads in the next few days (if you missed them, check them out). My top favorites: Budlight - Will Ferrell pretending to be Jackie Moon, Budwiser- the draft horse and the dalmatian, Vitamin Water - Shaq being a jockey, Bridgestone - Richard Simmons, and Budlight - I can fly. Every time I figured I could get up, grab a snack, check on something, whatever... I couldn't out of fear I'd miss a brilliant commercial. Well done ad-creators, well done.

And the fourth quarter - my god was that good! On one side we had the New England Patriots (NE) who went undefeated the entire season, and if they won this game, they'd go down in history for a perfect season. On the other hand, if the New York Giants (NYG) won, they'd get to say the stopped an almost unstoppable team as well as the quarterback's family would have 2 sons that won Superbowls. For me, it was a win-win situation; both outcomes seemed great. But moving along...
I stood up for the last 10 minutes of the game. Right when I figured that NE had one, the NYG started making some serious yards. As they inched towards the goal line, the clock ran down. The three minute mark rolled around and it felt like it was over, but the NYG held on. Finally, after 3 time-outs and a lot of running, a pass was made and then the NYG were up!!! OMG, they've won! BUT WAIT - not quite. There was still a minute to go and Brady and Moss were an killer duo.
Brady threw his first pass and they moved down the field. Time-out. Brady threw his second pass and Moss missed. Time-out. Brady threw his third pass and Moss couldn't hold onto it. Time-out. And now there was 0:01 seconds remaining. The NE coach knew the NYG had won and congratulated their coach and then left the field, but the game appeared to not be over. What was going on?
Finally it was announced that the New York Giants won.

What an incredible game. I don't know all the rules, but it was quite the spectacular.

Reuniting Forces

Tonight is the first night Batman (me) and Robin (Kevo) reunite!

Last month we both decided to vacation in warmer climates: Kev went to Perth, Australia and I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina. While being jostled around on the 28X bus, we exchanged stories and just grinned at each other. It was so wonderful to get to see my dance partner again and to catch up with him and the adventures of his life!

Our goals for February:

• Get www.iLindy.com up and running
• Make a curtain
• Film dance clips
• Book more gigs
• Find music for a competition pieces
• Choreograph something for class

And that's the news for now. More later!!!